Is being ‘interdisciplinary’ an entirely practical
thing?Conferences and books that cross
disciplines aim to practice
interdisciplinary.They do not theorise
but engage in interdisciplinary activities.They find places where disciplines meet or can potentially meet in
tackling a problem or thinking about an object.

There are interdisciplinary centres which seek to represent
this work and challenge the pressure of specialisation which creates ever
higher boundaries and exclusive domains of terminology.These are also practical affairs which stage
‘interdisciplinarity’ through their conferences and publications.These interdisciplinary spaces are supposedly
cleared of the marks of particular disciplines, of the founding concepts of any
particular field.This means that the activity
which takes place in these spaces has the potential to be radically new, to
initiate conceptual shifts that arise because disciplinary concepts meet in a
space that is not already marked out by the foundational concepts that give
particular disciplines their shape.

Yet how is this activity organised?When interdisciplinary research throws up
titles such as ‘Managing trust – Making interdisciplinary research teams work’
and ‘Best practice of interdisciplinary research: lessons from the history of
biology’ it seems that interdisciplinary studies is concerned with managing the relations between the
disciplines.It seems to me that in
seeking to be purely practical in our approach to the interdisciplinary we
smuggle certain theories into the space of praxis.Theories of management and organisation
structure the spaces which are supposedly interdisciplinary.It is this meta-discipline that dominates
when we seek to clear the ground for interdisciplinary practices.

Architectonics raises the problem of the foundations (or
lack of foundations) of knowledge in order to re-think, rather than simply
manage, interdisciplinary activities and forms of knowledge.It must answer its own questions about
whether it structures the space of the interdisciplinary by examining its own conceptual
foundations and the methods which are founded upon them.However, its major strength in this regard is
to be self-critical.It does not to
claim to be theory neutral and concerned to merely ‘facilitate’ practice like those
who seek to manage the change that can occur when disciplines meet.

Is being ‘interdisciplinary’ an entirely practical
thing?Conferences and books that cross
disciplines aim to practice
interdisciplinary.They do not theorise
but engage in interdisciplinary activities.They find places where disciplines meet or can potentially meet in
tackling a problem or thinking about an object.

There are interdisciplinary centres which seek to represent
this work and challenge the pressure of specialisation which creates ever
higher boundaries and exclusive domains of terminology.These are also practical affairs which stage
‘interdisciplinarity’ through their conferences and publications.These interdisciplinary spaces are supposedly
cleared of the marks of particular disciplines, of the founding concepts of any
particular field.This means that the activity
which takes place in these spaces has the potential to be radically new, to
initiate conceptual shifts that arise because disciplinary concepts meet in a
space that is not already marked out by the foundational concepts that give
particular disciplines their shape.

Yet how is this activity organised?When interdisciplinary research throws up
titles such as ‘Managing trust – Making interdisciplinary research teams work’
and ‘Best practice of interdisciplinary research: lessons from the history of
biology’ it seems that interdisciplinary studies is concerned with managing the relations between the
disciplines.It seems to me that in
seeking to be purely practical in our approach to the interdisciplinary we
smuggle certain theories into the space of praxis.Theories of management and organisation
structure the spaces which are supposedly interdisciplinary.It is this meta-discipline that dominates
when we seek to clear the ground for interdisciplinary practices.

Architectonics raises the problem of the foundations (or
lack of foundations) of knowledge in order to re-think, rather than simply
manage, interdisciplinary activities and forms of knowledge.It must answer its own questions about
whether it structures the space of the interdisciplinary by examining its own conceptual
foundations and the methods which are founded upon them.However, its major strength in this regard is
to be self-critical.It does not to
claim to be theory neutral and concerned to merely ‘facilitate’ practice like those
who seek to manage the change that can occur when disciplines meet.